Grant Poujade stood in front of the computer lab’s whiteboard and asked the question of the hour: What should the class make with its 3-D printer?

One girl, dressed head to toe in pink, practically jumped out of her seat.

“A fortress!”

Other kindergartners, all seated in front of desktop PCs, followed with more answers: A pirate ship. A book. The Statue of Liberty.

Shortly after, students used wooden blocks to build the desired shapes on the floor before using an application called “Blokify” to recreate the models on an iPad. Poujade said he would make the winning model on the 3-D printer in the front of the room.

For Poujade, it was exactly the kind of creative thinking he encourages every day in Forest Park Elementary’s technology class.

As politicians and businesses push for more students to become involved with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), classes like Poujade’s help expose students to such careers early in life. Students don’t just learn about PowerPoint and Word. They delve into writing code and putting “inventor kits” to use.

Poujade says the class, which teaches students to be makers more than consumers of technology, helps build critical thinking skills that are essential in the workplace.

“Not everyone is going to become an engineer, but they’ll at least know how to think like one and problem solve,” he said.

Keeping priorities

Teaching technology has long been less common on the elementary school level than the middle and high schools.

“A lot of times we leave the elementary kids alone when it comes to this kind of stuff because it’s either too expensive or inaccessible,” said Poujade, who arrived to the school two years ago.

But principal Tanya Ghattas wanted to make technology a major part of the school’s curriculum. Prioritizing district money and parent fundraisers helped update the school’s technology. At Forest Park, there are about 125 computers housed in a lab and on two mobile carts of laptops.

Poujade said many of the most novel aspects of the program are funded by partnerships. Intel, IBM, ING Financial, Code.org and Walmart have all provided help. The founder of “inventor kits” called MaKey-MaKeys donated some to the class. MakerBot, a Brooklyn-based creator of 3-D printers, gave them a grant for the printer, which usually sells for up to $2,300.

ADX, a Portland-based company aimed at giving community members space to invent and create products, is also planning an interactive project with Poujade this month.

Poujade's position as a full-time technology teacher at an elementary school is rare. Parent fundraising helps with his salary, which can be difficult for other schools to match.

Still, he believes the program could spread far beyond Forest Park, even for less affluent populations. “There’s nothing we’re doing here that nobody else couldn’t do,” he said. “It’s just changing the priorities for it.”

Poujade has met with leaders at other schools in his cluster, and they’re contemplating more partnerships across the district.

“We don’t want this to be a secret,” said Ghattas. “We want to spread the word and we want to be collaborative.”

‘100 percent buy-in’

It’s easy to see why kids like the curriculum. During the morning, kindergarteners stood transfixed as the 3-D printer whizzed away on creating a blue comb designed by Poujade.

Jake Stavig, 5, practically whispered to himself as he put his face closer to the printer. “Making something in 3D?” he said. “Awesome!”

Later in the day, Poujade welcomed David Wade’s fifth grade class. For weeks, the students had been using cereal boxes, chopsticks and the inventor kits to create a game like Hasbro’s classic “Operation.”

The students used chopsticks to pick objects out of holes they carved out the cereal box. If the chopsticks touched the cereal box, the computer emitted a buzzing noise.

Tuyge Tees, who drew ghosts on his computer game, said he liked the programming aspect of the class. It was a step up from their past technology lessons, he said.

"Before we had Mr. Poujade, we used to just do typing and how to search the Internet," he said.

Homeroom teachers see the difference. “If you look around, there’s a 100 percent buy-in,” Wade said. “Everyone’s doing something connected to the project and everybody is talking about science and engineering in a really authentic way.”

Any given day, the lab is full of successes and failures. Poujade always says that’s good: engineers, inventors and designers all get tripped up once in a while.

Before Wade’s class packed up for the day, Poujade gave them a survey to fill out. Did they like the activity?